Natural Selection
by 7.06andcounting
Summary: ...because those best adapted to their environment, survive. And Tim learns fast.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own The Outsiders. **

**I was going for Tim as we know and love him, very surprised when this young one popped up! A series of connected moments in his life, that made him who he is. Please let me know what you think. **

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So I'm thirteen years old and palling around with my uncle Dominic, who really is my uncle, not like those douche bags who turn up at the breakfast table for a few months, grabbing onto Ma and eating all the cereal unless I sneak it out to the kids first.

If I had a buck for every one of those kind of 'uncles' who came and went, I wouldn't be lifting Kools every other day. Well, maybe I would, but I wouldn't need to, savvy?

Dominic, who goes by 'Dom', is only four years older than me. Ma had other brothers too, but between Korea and the slammer, there's just Dom around these days. He calls me 'kid', but he lets me hang around, shows me how to hot wire a car, how to jimmy a window. Most important of all, he shows me how not to get caught. Dom is like some kind of lucky charm, the others say; take him on a job and the cops never even look in our direction.

"You got it too, Timmy." He grins when he says it. He knows I hate being called that, but I'm not big enough to make my point stick. Not yet. "You got it too, kid. The luck of the Irish."

Later, when it's just us, he tells me that the other guys are dumb fucks and it ain't about nothing as random as luck. It's about watching real careful. Always knowing the score. He don't get caught because he don't take chances.

At first, I don't get it. Every time I lift something, I'm taking a chance, ain't I? But Dom points out that, no, I already know which stores got blind spots, I already wait 'til the cashier's distracted. Cars, houses, it ain't no different, Dom tells me – it's the watching before the taking that counts.

But he ain't only about being watchful.

When a kid tries to take him down, thinks he can be the big dog in our outfit, Dom wipes the floor with him, over at the disused lumberyard where we hang out. Past the point of knocking him down. Dom really hurts him.

I ask if he would've got the message without the broken arm, without the busted cheekbone.

"Maybe he would, but what about the others?" Dom makes me think about it. Makes me realize the lesson didn't just go out to the kid in the fight. No one who saw it, who sees the wreck of that kid, is going to step up to Dom any time soon.

Dom likes girls a whole lot. I don't really get that either, but he tells me that I will. Only not to let them distract me when there's work to be done, or ever let one get her hooks into me. He picks up these two chicks one night and he tells one to be nice to me. After what she does to me, I get it. I want to see her again, but Dom says that would be a mistake. Dom says that any number of chicks will do what she did.

When I'm fourteen, I decide I can pull a job on my own. I do okay, it's just a little grocery store, nothing I can't handle.

The next time I see Dom, he's lost a tooth and cracked a couple of ribs. I didn't know the store was over the line. River Kings turf. Dom went toe to toe with the leader of the Kings. They would've killed me, but they took a fair fight in settlement from him.

Dom tells me he did it for me. "Ain't nothing more important than family, Timmy."

He waits until we're all back at the yard, before he breaks my nose.

I understand.

I pretty much get to try everything once, while Dom's in charge. He lets me drink myself blind one night. Then the next day, he walks me around, asks if I remember this car with the smashed windscreen, or this fence with the blood that looks fresh on it? Then he asks how I'm going to give myself an alibi, if I don't know where I was?

I don't like not remembering. Dom says that's good. Dom says being in control is worth more than being wasted.

One of the 'uncles' sticks around. Decides he's changing his title to 'step-dad'. Dom tells me to watch out for Angel, even Curly, if he's that kind of step-dad. But he's just a lousy replica of the real thing, lazy, whiskey sodden. Barely gets out of Ma's bed, he ain't going to get into any of ours.

There's a room over the yard. We hang there, me and Dom; a little booze, a little grass, a lot of girls. The girls say I'm quiet. They like quiet.

I ain't quiet. I'm watchful.

When I'm fifteen, Dom makes a mistake. A _husband back a little early_, _knife in the dark_, kind of mistake. A fifteen year stretch kind of mistake.

There are older guys in the outfit, some of them think they're stepping into Dom's shoes easy enough.

But by then I'm big enough that no one calls me Timmy. Not twice anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Having set the scene last time for Tim to take over the gang, I'm taking it back to a few younger moments before moving on. Please let me know if it works, I welcome all feedback. :)**

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I can't make Curly stop bawling and this is a problem.

I'm seven to his four and I can see better than him there's no logic in the threat, 'Shut up or I'll give ya something to really cry about.' But just because there's no logic don't mean there's no threat.

If I can't make him shut up, Ma'll come back in here and she won't care which of us catches it. So, him bawling becomes my problem. I tell him he can play with my car. I only have one left with all four wheels now, since the last time this happened and Curly annoyed Pete.

She says to call him Uncle Pete, but I know he ain't our uncle.

Curly'll do it, 'cause he don't know no better. Angel'll call any man she sees 'Unca', she thinks that's just what you call 'em.

I know better.

Gramma told me that I only got one uncle round here. Got two in a place she never wants to see me end up, pleaseGodandalltheangels. Got another two gone to be with baby Jesus. None of 'em called Pete.

My NoGoodDaddy's in the first place. Same as my livin' uncles. So I think I might like to go there one day, to the slamming place. I ain't allowed to slam the doors at home, nor at Gramma's. Maybe that's why they went there. Maybe they like to slam doors too.

Only, I can't tell Ma or Gramma that I wanna see my NoGoodDaddy because I already get in trouble just for looking like him. I don't know how to wipe that damn look off my face. I tried once, with a wash cloth, but my face looked the same to me.

Ma gets mad about my NoGoodDaddy 'cause he left her with Angel for a surprise, when he went to the slamming place and she already had her freaking hands full enough.

I get that Angel's just a girl an' all, but I would think she would like her more than Curly, because Curly's way more trouble.

Angel don't bawl like Curly. She's littler, but she already knows that quiet and smiling is what works.

I don't do smiling, but I can do quiet.

I just gotta get Curly to shut up right now, so I give him the car to hold. I'll have to be quick if Pete (who ain't our uncle) gets mad enough to come in here. Last time Curly got on his last nerve, Pete smashed the little red truck and belted both of us. I can take the licking but I really liked that truck. Maybe I can hide the car, if I hear him coming.

Curly says he's hungry. I wish he didn't say that, because I was doing real good at ignoring the fact that lunch didn't happen again. It's Angel's day to be with Gramma, so she got lunch, I know that.

I tell Curly that I can't do nothing while he's bawling, but maybe if he's quiet I can do something. He shuts up some, snot bubbling in and out his nose as he tries to slow his breathing down. I tell him to sit tight, not to move from our bed, not one damn inch.

There's no sense in both of us catching it.

I listen by the door before I turn the handle. If they went for a nap, I can be quick and quiet and back again. One of their naps with noises would be the best thing, 'cause then they don't hear me, not ever.

It's quiet but I take a chance and turn the handle real slow. My heart starts thumping harder, Curly whimpers and I shoot him a warning look. Then I peek out. I don't see them.

The chair is the hardest thing to do quiet, but I can't reach the cabinet without it. I would like peanut butter and jelly, and I can make a sandwich, I know how, but the jars are in the ice box an' the ice box is old and makes a lot of noise when it's opened and anyway, cookies are the quickest thing to shut Curly up with. I climb up on the chair and then the counter-top, and I reach up for the box of cookies, but when I close the cabinet, Pete (who ain't our uncle) is in the kitchen looking at me.

I freeze with the box in my hand.

He scratches his bare stomach, above the waistband of his undershorts. It's kind of cold in mine and Curly's room, too cold to get undressed for a nap, but Pete mostly does, I've noticed. It must be warmer in Ma's room.

He don't say nothing. He reaches into the ice box for a beer. I don't know why it's funny that he can buy his own beer now, because he was already a big man, but it was his birthday last week and Ma laughed about that. Until he said she was getting too old for him because a quarter sentry is too old. A quarter is money and a sentry is a soldier so I don't understand what that's got to do with Ma.

I climb down, slow and careful. I don't want him to hit me while I'm up high, I don't wanna fall.

He's looking for the beer key, to open the can. I see it. It's by the dishtowel. I reach out and pick it up, hold it out to him, stretching my hand as far as possible so I don't have to go too close.

He watches me as he takes it, opens the can and drinks, still looking at me. Then his eyes flick to the box I'm trying to hide behind my back.

I tell him that I'm hungry. And I think, _don't mention Curly, keep his mind off Curly._ I start to edge backwards out the kitchen. He lets me get as far as the door before he moves.

The yank on my arm and the strength of his grip take my breath away, but I don't let go the box. I won't let go the box. Not when he shakes me, not when he tells me that I'm a mouthy little shit and he don't want to see me again this side of tomorrow. Not when he slaps me so hard my teeth snap together.

He picks up another beer and goes back to Ma's bedroom.

I think the baddest word I know, about him, I think he is _fuck_. And I go back and take the jar of peanut butter and a spoon and I carry them, plus the cookies, back to Curly.

I won't cry. I don't do that.


	3. Chapter 3

I am pleased when my daddy comes home again. Only I remember him, aside from Ma I mean, 'cause I was six when he was home before and I'm nine now. Curly and Angel was too little, they don't remember, even though he was home a whole year before he went back inside.

_Inside_ makes me smile to myself, when someone says it, like a teacher, like 'Everyone _inside_ now', or 'I left it _inside_'. I think to myself, they don't even know it means jail.

Daddy is home from jail.

I am most pleased because it means no more fake uncles.

Ma don't seem so pleased. But it is Daddy's house and there's not a goddamn thing she can do to stop him living in it, that's what he tells her. And soon she is pleased again and she sits on Daddy's knee, like she did with the uncles who was here before, an' who we mustn't tell about.

I think she is dumb if she thinks Curly won't tell. He can't help it. He always tells.

But to be honest, Daddy might not hear him anyways. Daddy seems to like Angel best. I don't like to think that, especially since I am the one who remembers him, I am the _only_ one who remembers him. It seems that way though.

I tell Daddy that I am still a real good swimmer and will he take me swimming again when it is warm enough, like he did when I was little? And Daddy says that he will take all of us, and has his little princess got a pretty swimsuit so he can teach her?

Daddy says that he's got himself a real little doll and he likes it when Ma dresses Angel up in fancy clothes. Angel likes it too. She's real smart, for all she's still a baby and only 5 years old. She straight away figures out that smiling and being cute will get her stuff, more than bawling and whining will. I don't think Curly's ever gonna figure that out.

After a few times when Curly cries about something, Daddy gets real mad and says that he's a whiny brat. Says he needs to toughen up.

I tell Daddy that _I_ am tough, I didn't even cry when a big boy pushed me off the swing at the park and I cut my head open. He says that I'm his little tough guy and he shows me some real boxing stuff to do, for next time someone tries to push me around at the park.

Angel hangs onto his leg and says, "What if some big boy pushes me off the swing?" and Daddy picks her up and tells her that I will punch the boy for her. Girls don't punch, not if they got big brothers to do it for them. I think about the fact that Curly is her big brother too, but I don't say that to Daddy.

After two weeks, Daddy don't come home one night and Ma sits and smokes at the kitchen table. She smokes and smokes and when he comes back at breakfast time and he smells of beer and he has a big bruise round his eye, she yells and yells.

We stay in our room, like when this happened with the fake uncles. Daddy's voice is real loud and he breaks a dish.

Curly and Angel look at me and I tell them to stay quiet.

I give up trying to make Daddy like me better than Angel. He likes me better than Curly and that will have to be enough.

He likes me better than Curly because I am tougher than Curly. I am nearly as tough as Daddy, he says so. He says so and he laughs when Ma tells him not to teach me to cuss, 'cause don't I already got a mouth on me like a freaking sailor?

"Well, who taught him so far?" is what Daddy says, "sure as hell weren't me."

Ma tells him not to let me cuss, not to let me taste his beer, not to let me think that all I need to do is use my fists to get by.

"Sure, sweetheart," is what he always says. And then he winks at me, behind Ma's back.

I like to do the things that Ma says not to, except for the beer, I don't really like that, but I don't tell Daddy, 'cause that makes me special, that he gives it to me. Curly ain't allowed to taste the beer, he's too little, and Daddy says Angel ain't ever gonna taste it. He says that little ladies don't drink beer, it ain't nice for them.

I guess Ma is different, 'cause I seen her drink beer lots of times, with the fake uncles.

After another week, Daddy stays out all night again and he stays out the next night too. Ma is mad as hell when he comes home and she says that she don't gotta put up with this and Daddy says,

"Damn straight, you know where the door is, Ria, any time you wanna leave an' make sure to take them whiny brats with you."

I want to think that Daddy don't mean me too, because I ain't a whiny brat. But I know he does.

I don't know where we would live if we didn't live here. Maybe Gramma's house? I don't think I want to live there, even though I would rather share a room with Dom than Curly. Gramma washed my mouth with soap for no freaking reason and she tries to make me say prayers for everything.

I take my baseball cards and my arrow head - that me and Daddy found at the lake when he showed me how to swim - and I keep them in my pocket because I'm afraid to leave them behind if we go to live at Gramma's house.

I keep them in my pocket for two days, but we don't go to live nowhere else. Ma does plenty of bawling and then Daddy gives her a real gold necklace and says that he wants her to be his girl again and they do mushy stuff like kissing.

Then there is another time when Daddy stays out all night and they start fighting and that time he brings her earrings.

The next time after that, I don't bother to pack my cards and I give my arrow head to Curly. I don't think we will go to live somewhere else.

But I wonder what it would be like.


	4. Chapter 4

**Thanks for all the support on this, including guest reviews, even if I can't reply. All appreciated :) Time settings might shift a little, like in this one, because the pieces are on a theme so Tim's age changes between 'chapters'. This is just a short one.**

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I'm nine years old the first time I'm in a cop car. To be honest, I think it's a gas. I'm disappointed the miserable fucker won't put the lights and siren on.

Don't think it's so funny when I catch a licking for bringing the freaking cops around.

"Do I wanna be seeing that at my door?" my daddy yells. "Ain't you got the sense you was born with?"

I'm used to the way Ma wallops me. I even got used to the fucker who wasn't our uncle slapping me. But this is the first time since Daddy came back that I've been in serious trouble. I have to lie on my front because Daddy uses his belt, meaning my behind and the back of my legs is on fire for the rest of the night.

I learn something. I learn that breaking a few windows ain't worth this. No way. I learn that, above anything else, I need to not get caught.

Curly keeps sniffing, looking over at me. Eventually I tell him to shut the hell up. He scurries over to me. We got two beds in here now, thank God, I don't have to put up with him kicking me all night no more. So he crosses the couple of feet between us and whispers to me that he hates Daddy.

I reach up and slap him one around the head. Moving hurts.

"You shut up," I hiss at him. "Don't you say that." Sometimes I think Curly is a retard. What in hell does he think would happen if Daddy heard him say that? I know Curly don't remember Daddy from before he went away. But he's been back for months now. Even Curly's gotta see how things are now.

Curly goes back to his own bed, sulking. At least that means he'll be quiet.

xxXxx

I'm twelve when I get my first trip downtown. I've crossed some line where the cops think that taking you home will be enough of a warning. I sit in the holding cell out back, by myself, hearing them talk about me. Talk about my old man.

Fucking right I'm a chip off the old block. My old man is tough.

My old man is also back inside, so it'll be Ma they call to come get me. That'll piss her off. I'm just taller than her though, and I'm definitely quicker than her, so if she wants to tan my hide she'll have to be smart about it.

She doesn't come.

Around midnight they bring me a sandwich and a paper cup of soda. I'm embarrassed because I think the cops are sorry for me, that Ma didn't come. I tell them that I want my smokes, they're fucking thieves if they think they're keeping my smokes. I can't believe they made me empty out my pockets.

A voice drifts out of the next cell. I didn't know there was anyone there, I can't see into it.

"Let the boy have his smokes," the voice says, sounding old and tired. "You know his next stop is the reformatory and he'll learn pretty quick what a weed's worth in there. Hey boy, you any good on your knees? You better learn, you like those smokes so much."

The cop shouts back to keep his dirty mouth closed.

I don't think I understand.

After the cop has gone and it's quiet again, whoever it is in the next cell starts whispering to me, about what they will do to me if I go to the reformatory or to the real jail.

In the end it's Gramma who comes down, the next morning. That's even more embarrassing because she starts in on me before we even leave the station house and everyone hears her, telling me that the Lord sees all and he sees me in this sorry place and do I want to be heading straight to Hell because I'm on the path there, sure enough, and sending her to an early grave while I'm at it.

Dom is outside with the car, she lets him drive most times now, since he got his licence and her eyes ain't so good. When she starts up again in the car, he says to leave me alone, didn't I already learn my lesson, spending the night in there? He winks at me in the rear view and I grin back.

I did though. I did learn a lesson. I learned that I need to stay out the reformatory and if I can't, I need to learn how to defend myself, before I get put in there.

When Gramma goes into the house, I ask Dom to show me how to use a switch.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: a quick switch in age again. these are written by theme, not chronologically.**

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Detention is for losers. Detention is more school. Why'd you wanna put yourself up for that?

Suspension, that's where it's at. Suspension is no school, home in the day when ma's at work, do what the hell you like and no truant officer can come knocking, no matter that you're eleven years old, 'cause school told you to get lost in the first place.

Seems like common sense to me.

Only trouble is, it's a fine line between the paddle, or detention, or a full blown suspension.

The paddle don't frighten me, I can take it. Ain't no worse than the end of a belt an' who the hell ain't used to that? But detention blows.

It pisses me off to do something I think is bad enough for suspension and end up sitting in front of Clarkson, for an extra hour every afternoon for a week, instead.

I have recently taken to being 'pissed off' by most everything, because I like the way it sounds. I roll the words around on my tongue. _That pisses me off. He pisses me off. The whole world pisses me off._

Cussing gets you the paddle _and _detention, so I learn to keep a lid on it around teachers.

Apparently, lunch is only worth detention. Other people's lunch, that is. I ain't never had a lunch I carried with me to school. Who's supposed to give it to me? Ma? Don't make me laugh.

So, taking someone's lunch equals detention.

Collarbones, though. They're worth suspension, I find out without even asking.

If you break one, shoving someone off the jungle gym when he won't give up his lunch.

He's tough enough, for a baby, that Steve Randle. I don't even know what his problem was. He only had lousy PB and J.

The kid with the stupid name looks more scared than him. Bursts into tears when Randle hits the ground and don't get up. Stupid Name really is a baby. I mean, I know they're only in second grade an' all, but why is he still bawling like a girl? Even Curly's got more balls than that now.

I would've gone for Stupid Name's lunch, only his big brother picks him up from school sometimes. I would fight him but I don't think I could beat him. It would almost be worth it. Stupid Name's lunches are good.

Maybe Randle oughta trade, then he'd have something worth fighting for, something worth a broken collar bone.

I never even knew such a bone was. It ain't right where a collar goes. At first I thought they was saying I broke his neck, 'cause that's where a collar is. I wonder what a broken neck looks like. More impressive than a pansy sling, which is what Randle gets to wear like a stupid girl with a stupid necklace.

He tells me that when his bone is mended, he's gonna fight me an' his dad says that he won't even get in trouble. His dad says that he can fight me all he wants. He asks if my dad says that I can fight without getting in trouble for it. I tell him yes.

And then he calls me a liar because everyone knows my dad went to jail. Again. I'm about ready to land one on him, sling or no sling, when Clarkson rounds me up and I don't see him again.

His collarbone stays broke until summer vacation starts and then I'm gone up to the middle school and I forget about him anyway.

Middle school sucks even more than grade school.

I don't know no one, except the losers who came up with me. If I went to the Catholic school, I would get to see Dom. But Ma says she ain't a Catholic no more and the freaking priest would rather spit on her than give us a letter of recommendation. Gramma got her beads out, when Curly told her what Ma said.

I don't like being the littlest again. I don't like that there are kids who think they're tougher than me. They ain't tougher than me. I take on a couple from the grade above to prove it.

They got a paddle at middle school too, I discover.

I wonder if they work out you're gonna get it twice, if they call home? If the school punishment is soft - just a couple of whacks, that ain't nothing - 'cause they know you're gonna get worse anyways?

Ma keeps one of my dad's belts special, even though she threw out all his other stuff. I know what to expect. She always yells some, tells me to fetch it, gives me a licking and then sends me to bed.

I don't think she ought to let Ron do it though. I don't like it if he does it. He ain't my uncle.

I won the fights though.

They don't like that, the older boys. One day after school they wait for me, down by the park.

They start shoving me from one to the other and there's four of them, so I know there's not much I can do about it. I try and get in a punch, but one of 'em gets me back and I hit the dirt, my lip split.

Then there's another couple of boys there and one of them new ones says, "That ain't fair, four on one an' he's only a little one."

The one who hit me says, "Shut up, Curtis, it ain't your business. This 'un's a cocky little shit and he needs to be took down."

I'm up and running at him and I got the momentum to tip him over and we're both on the floor, with me on top and hitting him. Then the big boy yanks me back up on my feet. And I see that it's the big brother. Stupid Name's big brother. I didn't see him around school yet, but I guess he goes here.

He tells me to cool it. He tells the one who hit me to cool it. He tells the four of 'em that if they think it's okay to gang up on a littler kid they won't mind him and Paul ganging up on them, will they?

They mind. They disappear.

"You should maybe walk home with some friends," Big Brother tells me. He's a frigging comedian. He looks like he's waiting for me to say something back. I don't know what I'm supposed to say.

But I think about it that night, when I'm lying in bed, running my tongue over the split in my lip.

And I think what he was saying was, there's strength in numbers.

I don't want friends. I don't need friends. But the next day I watch the kids in my classes and I work out who would be useful.


	6. Chapter 6

I ain't sure what's so different this time.

When Angel was a baby, dad must have been inside for a couple of years. I don't really remember that. But I remember him coming home in time for me to turn six, although he was gone again before I turned seven. That wasn't his fault though, he got framed by some bastard out of Catoosa who was holding a grudge. Dad got him good when he came home. He was home a long time this last time, like two years at least.

He said he was gonna take me hunting now I'm eleven. I think he meant it, this time. He said we was gonna go out to this place he knew, for maybe a whole weekend, just me an' him. When he got this next job done, he was gonna get a hold of a couple of hunting rifles and we was gonna go have some fun.

Only, when the fuzz came in the middle of the night, it wasn't no hunting rifle they found under his mattress. He didn't go easy. It took three of 'em to get him in the cruiser an' he cussed a blue streak every step of the way. My old man sure is tough.

This time, though, Ma says that he ain't coming back.

I try to find out why, what was different this time, why would they send him to jail _forever_?

Ma laughs and tells me that, Nah, they only sent him for five years, she means he won't be coming back _to us_ the other side of those five years.

"I'm done now," is what she says, "he ain't never gonna change. I'm divorcing him for sure this time."

Gramma crosses herself and tries to make me and Curly go to church with her but I tell her if Ma ain't a Catholic no more, then no more am I. I don't think I ever was one, whatever Gramma says.

And one day I get home from school to find out we miraculously acquired another new uncle. There's a lot of his stuff around; clothes, work boots (not looking very used, in my opinion) and a stack of lame country music records on top of Dad's Elvis collection.

The records are all that's left, apart from the belt that hangs inside the closet door.

"He ain't movin' in!" I yell, when Ma shows up. "Are you fucking kidding? Dad ain't been gone but a month." It's six weeks really. Six weeks, three days.

Ma's response is predictable. She slaps me across the face.

I slam the kitchen door behind me. And the door to my room. Of course, it ain't only my room. Curly bounces up off his bed, says that he's just as pissed as me and what do I think we should do about it?

I think we should make the bastard's life hell. I think we should let him know he ain't welcome and he ain't staying. He won't be, anyways, they never did before. Not Pete, nor the one with the tattoo of a naked broad on his arm, nor the one who took off with Ma's wallet and Angel's silver christening bangle that Gramma gave her special.

Only this time, something's different. Not the drinking. Not the fighting. Not the noisy, headboard-knocking making up. That all goes on as expected. But a month turns into two, and then six, and Ron is still here.

It freaked me out when he came into the house that first night. At first I didn't connect him with the boots and the records. I thought he'd come to play cards, drink beer, or something. That he'd forgotten Dad was gone. But he wasn't there as Dad's buddy. He was there for Ma.

I don't like him and I like even less that Ma thinks he can take over for Dad. He ain't my old man and I tell him so. I tell him when he yells at me, for coming home late and worrying Ma. Like she was ever worried before. I tell him when he tries to make me get up, or go to bed, or go out or stay in.

And I won't call him 'Uncle' Ron. I ain't a little kid no more, she can't make me.

At first, Curly and Angel copy me. But then one day, Angel forgets. Worse. She's chattering on about something and she calls Ron, 'Daddy'. She don't even realize she does it, goes right on talking about whatever it is. I drag her out in the yard and I tell her straight, I tell her that she needs to mind what she says. I tell her, that she's _gotta _keep remembering Dad. I did it when I was six and so can she.

She gets a real pouty look on her, an' says that anyway Daddy promised her a new ballerina doll an' she ain't happy that he went away without getting it for her. And she asks me if I think Ron would get it for her.

I think about the fact that she'll be the age I am now when our old man gets out.

I lift the doll easy enough, but Angel complains I got the one with a blue dress and she wanted the pink one.

One time when I'm in trouble again, Ma tells me to fetch her the belt and take what's comin' to me. It's easiest to let her get it out her system and think I'm taught whatever the friggin' lesson is supposed to be. At least she shuts up then. We got the routine down pat. Only, when I look around, she's handed the damn belt off to Ron and he lays into me considerable harder than she ever does. Not as hard as Dad did, though.

I grit my teeth and take the licking. But as I walk away, I tell him what I always tell him. He ain't my old man. He nods and says, real quiet, so Ma don't hear:

"Nah. _But I'm here_."

I hate him.

xxXxx

So, I'm home on suspension, first time out of middle school, an' the house is real quiet, just me. I like that. I don't turn on the radio or the TV.

Ma leaves piles of crap lying around. She's been collecting her papers in a folder because there's money for a divorce lawyer, apparently, even if Curly ain't getting a birthday present and never mind that his shoes have wore out, right down to a hole underneath. My old ones ain't no better, or he could have those.

I take Curly with me, to lift a new pair of shoes, thinking I can get the right size that way, but he's too excited in the first store and I have to take him around in back and shake him to get him to be cool.

I leaf through the stack of papers. She's gotta prove she was married, before she can get divorced. I know she is, because Dad complained about it enough. 'Suckered into it', that's what Dad used to say. 'Trapped like a fuckin' rat.' And there it is – a certificate, that says _James Timothy Shepard_...That makes me smile. Makes me and Dad nearly the same. Anyway, _James Timothy Shepard_ and _Maria Frances Riley_, married in Gramma's church, by the look of it, _July 6__th__ 1946_.

The next thing I find is my birth certificate. _Timothy James Shepard._ _November 5__th__ 1946._ And their names again. I look at that, thinking about how it makes me real as a person. If it was lost, I could be someone else. If I burned it up, I could be anyone I liked. I like seeing mine and Dad's names on the same piece of paper, though.

Underneath, just sticking out, I can see the one with Curly's name on it. His real name I mean, they didn't put 'Curly' down on the paper. I can't think of him as anything else though, don't know who _Jerome_ Shepard is, don't even think he would answer to it. His certificate sits there looking at me. I'm nervous that it might not have the same stuff written on it as mine.

Curly looks as least as much like Dad as me. He looks like me, I guess, in a squashed, short, kind of way. If it don't say the same things on his bit of paper though, would he still be my brother?

One time, real late at night, I heard Dad say something bad about Curly. Ma just cried.

But it's right there and I have to look. I have to.

And it's all right, because it _is_ Dad's name, same as on mine. I don't know why he said what he said, but this piece of paper proves he is Curly's dad. I wonder why Ma didn't show it to him, to prove it. I put the papers back, without looking at anything else.

A face at the window makes me jump. Dom grins at me. He tells me he's cutting class an' do I wanna hang with him? _Do I?_ Dom is cool. Dom knows some great places, places where you can lift bottles of pop from crates at the back entrances of stores, even get cigarettes if you're lucky. He shows me how to light one, how to breathe it without coughing. He shows me a place where you can cut into the high school football field without being seen, but there's just a bunch of cheerleaders practicing and I get bored. Dom laughs and says I will appreciate it soon enough.

When I get home, Ron is there, although he was supposed to be working all day. He ain't no better at keeping a job than my old man was. I ignore him when he asks where I was. He yells a bit and I cuss him out. He's been drinking, I can smell it on him when he grabs the front of my t shirt and shoves me against the wall.

Curly only comes up to Ron's waist, but he's suddenly there, between us, shouting about how Angel fell over on the way home from school and hurt herself and how Ron oughta see if she's okay. Ron turns around and heads out the front door.

When I go to follow him, to see about Angel, Curly snorts with laughter and tells me that she's just sitting on the curb out front, whining about a bruise on her knee, and that they heard Ron yelling from there.

"I don't need to be fucking _saved_," I object.

"Never said you did." He still smiles like he's proud of himself, or something.

So I get to disappear to my room and Curly gets to be the hero and Angel gets carried into the house and they both get cookies without even asking.

Curly's birthday comes around. And despite what Ma said, Ron gives him a Lone Ranger cap gun and Curly sleeps with it under his pillow and I can't make myself tell him not to.

* * *

**Okay, who counted? So, it's not that Tim can't do the Math, more that a boy his age back then wouldn't necessarily know it takes nine months...**


	7. Chapter 7

The day after I get in the fight with the middle school boys, we go to Gramma's house for dinner. Ma and Ron are yelling something fierce in the kitchen and Angel says they've been at it since she got in from school. Since it sounds like Ron lost another job, there probably ain't anything worth eating in our icebox anyway.

I think that Ron must be a particular kind of dumb, to piss off his boss the day _before_ payday. What Ma makes at the sewing place can cover the rent _or_ some of the bills, but the day before payday is always a plain noodles kind of day, if there's anything at all.

Gramma has meatloaf and mashed potatoes. That's worth pretending to close your eyes and pray for, although it's hard to keep still when Curly gets the words wrong and she hits him on the back of the hand with her spoon.

"Personally, I thank God you clowns turned up," Dom whispers to me, as he shovels his food down, "or I'da been eating this for days."

Gramma frowns; she ain't gotta catch the words to know he's mouthing off. He's kidding though, I know that. If we didn't turn up, Gramma would have sent the cold meatloaf over to ours tomorrow, sent it with Dom, I mean. She says she ain't talkin' to Ma no more, not while she's livin' in sin for all the world to see, like a shameless Jezebel. Whatever the hell that is. I asked Dom one time and he told me a few other words that didn't make much more sense.

But _we_ ain't livin' in sin, me and Curly and Angel, so Gramma still talks to us. 'Course that means I get an earful about the state of my split lip and why can't I keep out of fights and set a better example for my little brother and that precious baby girl who shouldn't have to see such a thing at her age?

The precious baby girl is currently trying to jab her fork into Curly, under the table.

I rub my lip with my tongue, as Gramma yaks on about it. I don't see why she assumes it was my fault. Maybe I got jumped for all she knows. The fucker bruised my cheek too, something I didn't even feel at the time.

Dom says, that when you rumble for real, you don't feel nothing. Not 'til after anyways. Dom's gang had a real, honest to God, rumble against some kids out from Brumly. That was Dom's first big fight, with him in charge. Dom is in charge of the Yard boys, he's in charge of the whole turf, since he took over from Henry Armstrong. Henry Armstrong got put in hospital by a lousy Brumly bastard who hit him with a baseball bat an' now he ain't right in the head. Dom's boys won the rumble.

After dinner, Curly and Angel get to watch Rin Tin Tin on TV. Dom gives me the nod to go out in the back yard.

"What happened?" he asks, lighting up. I shoot him a look and he laughs, hands over the weed and lights another for himself. He looks cool when he smokes. I'm still concentrating on doing it right, on not coughing. I want to make it look effortless, like he does.

I tell Dom about the jerks from school and how I stood up to them.

"Good goin', kid." He nods.

I tell him about the big brother too. It ain't like he would believe I took four kids down by myself.

He thinks for a second. "Yeah. Curtis. I know him." Dom knows everyone. He knows a little bit about a whole lot of people. Information is power. That's what he says. I have a vague memory of some teacher spewing that line in some class, so maybe he didn't invent it. But he uses it.

I ask why he don't recruit the big Curtis to the Yard boys? He'd be useful. I've been thinking about that today at school.

Dom says that Curtis is too smart. Too smart to be a follower. Plus he's too square.

"How is he square? He's a greaser, same as us," I object. I think I know where they live, them Curtises, it ain't no better than our turf. Dom tilts his hand from side to side: _not so much _he means.

"He can fight alright, but he ain't into the whole gang deal. Into sports an' shit, ain't he?" he scoffs. "Still, I can dig, if he took up for you, Timmy." He ruffles my hair and I squawk in protest, but not too loud, Gramma would skin me if she caught me smoking. She can't do nothing to Dom, he's sixteen and that counts as grown. Dom lounges back again. "I'da killed the little punks for you. You want me to come by after school, Monday?"

I tell him no, but I like the thought that he would.

And on Monday, I go up to this tall kid in my Math class and I tell him that I saw he got the answers to questions six, seven and eight wrong. I say that I can show him how to do them right, if he comes with me to get some lunch off this fat kid with glasses who sits in front of me.

Giametti – that's this tall kid's name – says okay and he takes the other kid's glasses while I look through his lunch. Cheese and ketchup is a weird sandwich, but I eat it and I tell Giametti how to do question six. For questions seven and eight, I suggest that he shares some smokes. He's all out, so he loans the weeds off a kid in another class who comes to sit with us too.

"You the one beat up Petey Wright last week?" the new kid, whose name is Campbell, asks. Not quite how it went, but I nod. He looks impressed. "I hate that Petey. Can you show me how to fight good?" he asks.

I nod again, and negotiate that he will bring me a sandwich tomorrow. His mom works in the supermarket, they get cost price on the cold cuts, so it ain't like it's a problem.

And after school, they both wait for me and we walk all together, like Dom and the Yard boys do, and Petey Wright and his friends can kiss my ass.

* * *

**Ooh, it's like The Magnificent Seven...the Shepard gang starts here!**


	8. Chapter 8

"What did you do?" I roll my eyes at yet another drama. Then I notice something. She's bawling. Properly crying, not the acting kind she does when she wants her own way. Not the screaming and shouting kind, when she – very occasionally – don't get her own way. She may be only eight years old, but she don't cry for real.

This time, though, Angela is crying, hot tears rolling down her face.

"Angel, what happened?"

All kinds of things rush through my mind at the same instant. Someone hurt her. Someone I will have to find and hurt right back. Not Ron. I didn't get it that wrong, did I? What Dom said about some guys getting off on touching little kids? Nah, I checked, I watched him when he moved in. He never acts like anything other than a wannabe dad, right down to the trying to ground the little ones and then forgetting all about it as soon as he he ties one on. He don't try and ground me. He can belt me, but he can't tell me what to do. What's he gonna do, nail the windows shut?

Between Angel's sniffs, I work out a few words; _candy lipstick_, _store lady_, _tell on her next time_. I stare as it slots into place.

"You got caught shoplifting?" I clarify. Her face twists into a dark scowl.

"Don't you laugh at me, Tim. Don't you dare!"

My little sister is bawling because her pride was hurt. She got caught trying to lift a candy lipstick and the sales lady gave her a lecture, to frighten her. I ask her where she was, turns out she picked the five and dime on up on Sutton.

"Well, that's your mistake, right there," I tell her. "They got everything laid out where the cashier can see."

She's scowling still, until I continue: "You wanna try the corner store, by the appliance place. The display counter cuts right across, they got a blind spot a mile wide."

Angel rubs the back of her hand across her face, tears disappearing. "Do they got candy lipsticks? The ones with the gold paper?"

"Jeez, I dunno. They got a stack of candy. Get somethin' else, if they don't got those." It ain't like they was ever on my own personal shopping list.

"I want the lipstick!" She pouts. "Come with me, Tim." It's more of an order than a request, that's been her style since she could talk.

I remember when I was Angel's age. After Pete, around the time of the one with the tattoo, before Dad came home again. I remember one time there was only soup in the cabinet and I couldn't work the can opener. How hard it was to shoplift bread, squashing it up my sweater and eventually just booking it as fast as I could, hoping I was faster than the assistant.

It's better that Angel only needs to think about candy.

I tell her that I will show her where the store is, only because I want something myself, but I don't want her walking with me. She can walk behind or in front, but not with me. She says okay and we head out.

"Where y'all goin'?"

Our first problem. Curly is now tagging along. I tell him the same thing, he can walk with her.

By the end of the street he is bouncing next to me, tripping over his own feet in his excitement. "What we gonna get?" he keeps asking, until I tell him he won't get nothing unless he shuts up and good.

Before we hit the store I stop. I have to wait for Angel to catch up, then she walks right by, like she don't know us, her nose in the air.

"What the hell you doing? C'mere," I snap.

"You said 'don't be with you'. I thought we was gonna play at bein' strangers in the store." Man, she surprises me sometimes. That'd be a good play, if we wasn't all cookie cutter stamped as family. I lean against the wall opposite the store and tell them to study it.

"Why? What for?" is Curly.

"Only one lady behind the counter, that's good, right?" is Angel.

I nod. Tell Curly about watching the sales assistant, watching the way people go up to the register, where they stand, checking out if there are any blind spots. This all seems like news to him and I wonder why he ain't been picked up a half dozen times already, because he never seems short of candy and shit.

I tell them to ante up and hold out my hand. Angel hands over four cents and Curly, after gripin' that he's saving up for a Batman comic, has a nickel. _Saving up?_ He is one weird little freak.

"Curly. Look at that guy –" I nod towards some old man choosing his magazine. "If you'd've walked in with him, stood next to him, you could've shoved freaking Batman up your shirt and booked it when he went up to the counter." I try to explain that he would've looked like the guy's kid and the cashier wouldn't have been suspicious.

"What if he didn't go to the magazines?" Curly objects. I sigh and tell him he could get something else, try another time, another store, any number of combinations. Try to make him see that being aware of the opportunity is what matters.

He wants to try right away, wants to hitch onto the next guy that turns up.

"No!" Angel stamps her foot. "This is for my lipstick. _I'm _goin' in."

"Cool it," I tell them and explain what we are actually gonna do.

Angel and I go into the store and look at the drinks, then I go up to the counter with two bottles, while she skips about near the candy. I dig in my pocket and count out the pennies carefully, while the sales lady watches me. I make a big deal about only having nine cents. I sigh and say I will take one Coke for my little sister, because I can't afford the Pepsi as well.

The lady hesitates, and I think, if I was a little younger, or maybe a little cuter, she would've stood me the extra penny. But she rings up the Coke and I walk out with it. Angel skips up to me and holds my hand as we leave the store.

"Thank you, Myron," she lisps. _Myron?_

Angel could totally pull off the 'I don't have quite enough money' deal. I'll tell her about that later. As soon as we're out of sight, I shake off her hand.

"Who the hell is Myron?" I demand, sipping on the Coke.

She shrugs. "He ain't Tim Shepard, that's the important thing."

"Did you get your candy?" Curly wants to know. She nods, happily, pulling it out of the pocket on her dress.

"That place is easy." She digs in the other pocket and shoves a pack of gum in Curly's hand.

Time to tell them not to hit the same place too often. Even _Myron_ would become suspicious looking if he was in there every day. Then I tell them to go home. I'm heading over to the yard, I ain't got time for kids' stuff all day.

"Tim? Can I have that Coke?" Curly turns back. Half a Coke now. I hand it over. Seems fair, since he paid for it.

And I'm still four cents up.


	9. Chapter 9

The principal's secretary looks about as bored as I feel.

I make sure she's looking right at me and I put my feet up on the chair opposite. I see her jaw twitch. I'm daring her to say something. Like I care. Seven days and I'm out of middle school forever. I lean back in my chair and yawn, my mouth wide.

The kid at the other end of the chairs snickers.

I turn around, slow like, to look at him.

I'm thinking he's not one of ours, because as he sits there, his blond hair falling forward, it's obvious he ain't never seen a pot of pomade in his life. But the clothes ain't right, for a Soc, and the attitude ain't right for a middle-of-the-roader.

Because he's scratching the wall with the tip of a switch that he has hidden up his sleeve.

To the secretary, he must just look like he's rubbing his hand up and down. She'd have to be where I am, to see the flakes of paint falling.

His eyes flick over to me and he ain't afraid. He ain't impressed either. Who the fuck is this kid?

He puts his foot up, across his knee, uses the blade to winkle out some imaginary stone from the sole of his boot. I can't help it, I glance back at the secretary.

She's turned around, looking in the top drawer of the file cabinet.

When I look back at the blond kid, he smirks. Like it should have been obvious he wasn't going to flash the blade when she could really see. He flicks it shut and drops it in his pocket.

Meyer comes out, goes to the secretary's desk. She hands him the slips that me and the blond kid have brought with us.

"Decisions, decisions." The fat bastard switches the slips back and forth in his hand as he stands over us. "It would have been nice, Timothy, if you'd made your _last_ week the one in which I wouldn't have to see you. " He sighs. "But apparently you have a worthy successor, in the shape of Mr..."

He consults the piece of paper. He doesn't know who the fuck this kid is, either. I mean who the hell joins a new school this close to the end of the year?

"...Mr _Winston_, who is gracing my office in his _first_ week with us. Much as you did, back when you joined us."

I give him a flat stare. He ain't funny and I ain't gonna pretend he is. He points at the kid and tells him that he can go first.

The kid gets up slowly. He walks across to the other room slowly. Nice. Even his movements are designed for maximum pissing off potential.

I sit there for a few minutes, hearing the drone of Meyer's voice. I could probably dredge up the words themselves if I paid attention to the pauses. He says the same thing every time. Then I hear him stand up and push his chair back. I know what he's going to do. There's only one reason he stands up himself, instead of sending a kid out.

And for no motive that I can identify immediately, I get up and open the door to his office. I vaguely hear the secretary squawk behind me.

"How long you gonna be, old man?" I demand. "'Cause I got places to be. I can't be wasting all afternoon on your fuckin' shit."

Meyer turns around from the cabinet, his face going purple with rage.

I mean, I've had some times in here. I've been ornery, I've been insolent, I've been downright rude. But I never did that before. I never cussed him like that.

For a second, I think he might actually have a heart attack. He waves at the blond kid, without looking at him and tells him to get out right now. Then he hisses at me to _shut the door_. And I do regret the impulse, slightly. Because I realize he's still holding the paddle, from when he was retrieving it to use on the kid.

But what the hell? I might as well go out with the school record, right?

I guess I should give Meyer some credit, he must've been holding back all these years. Because the effort he puts into the paddle is not his usual 'three whacks and you're out'. There must be some muscle under all that fat. I guess years of frustration come out too. I can hardly stand straight afterwards and it's all I can do to keep the same flat stare on my face. But I do.

Well, I wouldn't wanna give him too many surprises, my last visit, would I? I wouldn't wanna let him think he'd cracked me, after all. Wouldn't give the fat, old, fuckin' bastard the satisfaction of seeing me hurt.

I don't wait for him to dismiss me. I open the door and stroll out. It costs me to stroll, but I do it.

Down the hall, I kick open the bathroom door and kick it shut again, cussing quietly as I rub my behind.

"You want some privacy while you feel yourself up?"

The blond kid is sitting on the window ledge, smoking.

I have no idea who the hell he is, or why I did what I did, but I am royally pissed at his flippant attitude now.

I bend my right hand into a fist. I advance on the kid. He flicks his smoke away and hops down off the ledge.

"Fuck you!" he snaps. "Who asked ya to interfere? Who asked ya to? Who the hell are ya anyways?" He's like a tornado in my face. I slam him back against the wall, my arm across his neck.

I ain't taking that, not from some snotty new kid with a funny accent. I'm _someone_. I'm someone in Dom's gang. I'm someone in this school.

He pushes back and stamps on my foot. While I'm off balance he clocks me upside the head and goes to knee me in the balls. That means I can kick him in the shin. He yelps and I follow up with a punch to the gut.

A kid I don't know opens the bathroom door. He takes one horrified look at us and books it. I guess he knows me.

Blondie starts laughing. Still bent over, holding his gut, but he's laughing.

I ask him what's so fucking funny.

"That kid," he gasps, "that kid already wanted to piss and then he looked at you and I think it was too late. I think he pissed his pants."

A bubble of laughter rises up out of me too. We look at each other.

"You the big man round here then?"

He's a cocky little bastard. I tell him that he'd better fucking believe it, I'm the big man round here.

"Well, you _were_," he says.

I'm like, what? "What you talking about?"

"End of the semester. You're going to high school," he says. "So. You _were _the big man. I'm here now."

He's crocked or crazy if he thinks he's stepping up over Donny, or Frank - who's gotta repeat - or anyone I already know is thinking of stepping up.

He holds out his hand to shake mine.

"Dallas Winston," he says, with a shit eating grin that says he might just do it, after all.

* * *

**Ah, the beginning of a beautiful relationship ;)**


	10. Chapter 10

I'm walking. I don't want to be home and I don't want to be at the yard.

If Angel or Curly was at home, I'd probably stick it out, but they bugged out early when Ma and Ron started revving up to an all night fight, so I don't got to be there.

Angel has a lot of friends, she's always having dinner someplace that isn't home. She does a good line in 'charming house guest'. She never did forget that _quiet and smiling_ works on adults, although I guess she's a different kind of cute, now that she's ten.

Even Curly has kids he hangs with. They could be at the yard. I wasn't much older when I started hanging there. But tonight I don't feel like it. It ain't like I'm embarrassed about what Dom had to do. 'Sides, my nose is all healed up. I just don't feel like it. Sometimes I want to be on my own, savvy?

Dom talked to me late one night, just us. Sometimes one or two of the older guys stay over at the yard, but this time Dom sent them away.

Dom said that I'm turning out real good. He said that the store job I pulled showed guts, but he can't say that in front of the others. He said that he's sorry about my nose, he tried to do it clean and it's better than broken ribs, because those are a real bitch to heal.

I like that he trusts me more than the other guys. He's about the only person I trust back.

I was going to check out the park, but there was a whole bunch of kids with a transistor blaring, so I walked further. Everyone's getting the most out of the last week before school starts again. Winston lives somewhere around here, I think. We bumped into each other over the summer, once or twice. Had a pretty good scuffle over something I forget now.

A football lands in front of me on the sidewalk and I almost get knocked over as a couple of kids spill after it, shoving each other as they try to reach it.

"Hey, Shepard." Two-Bit Mathews grins at me, holding the ball up out the reach of a dark haired kid. He's got more'n a couple of inches on him, so it looks like he's winning, but the kid slugs him a good one in the gut and Mathews folds up like a paper bag and drops the ball. "No fair! Steve, you lousy, stinkin', cheat," he yells after the kid - _Randle_, I remember him now – as he races back onto the grassed lot they came from. Then he looks at me. "You wanna play?"

Before I can answer, Winston appears, cussing Mathews out for leaving the game stalling. He don't seem surprised to see me, just nods. I like that about him. It ain't that he's exactly watchful, it's more that he's just unshockable. I follow him and Mathews. I don't know why.

"Got us another player," Mathews announces, even though I never said I was playing. "Y'all know Tim, from school?"

I don't know all of them, not really. I shared maybe one class with Mathews in middle school. When we was both there that day. It ain't like you need to be there all the time. We passed okay, didn't we? Frankie Campbell's repeating, but that's 'cause he missed a chunk of time when he was inside. I mean, they're supposed to give you lessons in the reformatory but we all know how that shakes out.

They're all looking at me. I figure the littlest one for a Curtis, he looks enough like Stupid Name.

"I ain't playing," I snap, just to put them straight.

"No shit? _Tim Shepard, don't play well with others?_ Shocker." Winston smirks.

"You sore, 'cause the circus wouldn't take you when you ran away down here? You hadda settle for the rodeo?" I shoot back, pulling a face at the cowboy boots he has on. He narrows his eyes.

"You wanna go, Shepard?"

"Any time, _Saddle Bronx_." I beckon him on, but Stupid Name pipes up:

"Dally, leave it alone, we got a game goin' here."

I take in the two lines – Stupid Name, Randle, Winston and some dark haired kid I don't know, lined up against the little kid, Mathews and Big Brother Curtis. Big Brother nods hello at me.

"Go help them out, Tim," Mathews says, pointing me to stand with Winston. "We're killing 'em, ain't we, Pony?"

I have no idea what he's talking about, or even if he's talking to someone in particular.

"That's stupid," I hear myself say. "If I'm gonna play, I should even it up." I go towards Mathews but they all yell, 'No', at me. Except Big Brother.

"Come on our team, they already got Darry." Stupid Name says this like it ought to mean something to me. And then I remember that Big Brother – _Darry_, yeah, that's it – is some big football star already, over to the high school. Guess I'll find out how big, next week, when school starts and I'm up there.

They make a huddle around me, talking like it's gonna make any kind of a difference, like it's some real game with a real plan. And then the ball is in the air and they're all piling into a heap after it. I didn't even want to play – I don't even know how to play, if I'm honest. But it don't make no difference I can see. They throw it, I catch it, they yell for me to throw it back and then, before I do, every fucker lands on top of me.

"Shit." Winston looks at the blood on his arm, as they all get back on their feet.

It's not his, it's mine.

My nose is bleeding like a fucking fountain.

"Tilt your head back," Mathews suggests.

"No, _forwards_ an' pinch it," Big Brother – _Darry_ – says. It don't stop. He offers me his hand to pull me up. "We'd better go to our house. Soda, go tell Mom what happened."

Stupid Name races off, Randle with him, and for some reason I'm letting the rest of 'em herd me along to a house up the street. We go around in back and up some steps, the two little kids running inside. A woman comes to the door and holds up her hand to me and Darry.

"Right there'll do, boys. I just washed this floor." She shakes her head a little and mutters something that sounds like, "Stupid really. I don't know why I bother." Then she's looking at me closely. "Oh, honey, that's a doozy. You want to sit?"

Only when Darry's hand on my shoulder makes me sit on the top step do I realize she was talking to me. Sitting feels like the right thing to do. The blood long ago ran over the side of my hand, holding it under my nose is just a habit now.

Mathews and Winston are estimating how much blood I've lost, in loud voices. Mathews is up to a gallon, before Winston points out that I'd be dead if it was that much.

The woman has a dishcloth in her hand. "Here," she wipes my hand and presses the cloth under my nose. "It's clean!" She reacts when I pull away. I wasn't worried about the cloth, I just didn't expect her to do that.

"Sodapop," she calls, sitting by me. When he doesn't appear, she tells Darry to go inside and bring me a drink – she asks him my name and he tells her. She's pinching my nose kind of hard and I try to move away again.

"Honey, your nose always bleed this much? Or should I be calling your mother?"

I stare at her. I can't even begin to work out how the two questions are connected. Why would Ma be interested? And why is she still calling me 'honey', if she knows my name now?

"I dunno. It got broke a coupla months ago."

"Someone broke it for you, I heard," Winston crows. I lash out with my foot, but he's out of range easily, snickering.

"_Dallas_." She don't yell, but I notice that he shuts up.

Big Brother hands me a glass of something.

"Wait." She's moving the cloth back slow and...gentle. She pulls a face. "I think it's stopping. Have your drink. Darry, bring him a cookie, he's white as a sheet."

Just as I drink, I feel a fresh drip of blood run out. The Curtis mom takes the glass from me and the pinching and the cloth start all over again.

"What did the doctor say about your nose? Did he say it might bleed a lot until it was fully mended?"

What doctor? I guess my puzzled look tells her that answer. She frowns.

Stupid Name and Randle appear, munching noisily, as they jump down the steps. Darry's behind them, handing stuff to Mathews and Winston and the mom. I know the cookies in their hands didn't come from no packet. This is not my kind of place.

I'm aware, suddenly, of all of them watching me. It feels suspiciously like sympathy. I don't like it.

"I'm outta here." I stand up.

"Timothy! Sit down. You're going nowhere until I say so." She ain't shouting but even Winston snaps to attention when she speaks. In fact, they all shuffle backwards some. She's still got her eye on me. What should I do?

I sit down.

* * *

**Aw, I didn't write Mrs. C for a long time. I missed her. **

**This was possibly the fluffiest chapter. The next ones are..._not_. In case I need to persuade you to hang around. :)**


	11. Chapter 11

I tell him Dom's out the picture.

It hurts to think about that, so I don't. _Focus on what needs doing_, that's what Dom would say.

I tell him I'm taking Morris down and then, when I'm leader, I'll make him second. Frankie won't like it, but he'll haveta deal.

I tell him I already beat Paulson, who's dumber than a dead frog and thinks he should be leader because he's oldest. Dumb fuck forgets that he was older than Dom, and that didn't do him any good.

After I tell him, he drifts over to the yard that night, the boys know to let him in. Pretty much everyone's there. They know Morris wants me gone.

They think I'm drinking the beer that Sammy lifted right out an unguarded delivery truck, plus the Jack that's being passed around. I ain't. I still hear Dom's voice: _being in control is worth more than being wasted. _

I like being in control.

Morris is taller than me. Taller than Spaghetti, maybe. He's seventeen to my fifteen and he'd be on the freaking basketball team if he still went to school. But he twitches. He twitches before he throws a punch, and I can see it clear as anything. He might as well take out an ad in the frigging paper.

He snatches the bottle of Jack out my hand as it makes its way around.

"Little kids shouldn't drink hard liquor," he says.

The guys who aren't blitzed start moving back. There's only one way this is going to end. I know what he wants, he wants to rile me, he wants me to bleat that I ain't a little kid and then he'll show everyone that I'm wrong.

"Help yourself," I say lazily. "I'm happy with beer."

"Wise ass," he taunts me, "think you're something? Think you're someone? Think because you were Dom's little pet puppy, you got the right to step up to me? Dom ain't gonna save your sorry ass this time."

I stand up, real slow, and that surprises him, he thought I'd be mad. He ain't been watching me.

He pushes some more. Tells me that Dom was an idiot, to let me tag along, some fucking little kid who didn't know shit from shit. That's a mistake and Morris don't see it. There are boys younger than me here, including Curly. Boys who looked up to Dom. Boys who don't wanna be called tag-alongs. If Morris took me, he'd have trouble with them, because he just trashed their respect.

_Fear is one thing_, Dom said to me, _but respect is another. Be tough but be fair. Be consistent. They don't gotta like you as a friend, to follow you._

I remind Morris that Dom was good to him. Point out that he had his back more than once.

He sneers and says that Dom couldn't see past the end of his dick and that's why he's in the slammer, fifteen to life, and no skirt was worth that.

And that's his second mistake. Because now the older guys, who thought Dom's broad was tuff enough and the fact that she was married made her hotter and him tougher, now they think that Morris is an idiot and a back stabbing one at that.

He's doing my job for me. They wouldn't follow him now if he paid them.

And then he twitches.

I duck to the side and come up with a punch under his ribs and a kick to his knee. I remember he has a weak knee, from some old injury. I remember everything I need to as we trade blows.

He still has the size advantage and he gets in a decent hit to my face – I'm ducking again and he connects with my forehead, not my nose. He grabs my hair, like a girl, and pitches both of us down. The guys are making room, some of 'em are calling encouragement as we punch and roll. I know who's on my side. I try to identify who's rooting for him.

I can't stay down, he's too big, if I let him keep me down he can crush me. I get my knee up into his groin and he recoils just far enough for me to swing back around, so I'm on top and I can smash my elbow into his face. Blood erupts from his nose. I know how that feels. I hop up on my feet and kick him in the ribs, twice, three times.

Morris curls up, coughing, spluttering blood.

"Are we done?" I ask, like we were having some civilized discussion, although I'm panting. I feint that I'm going to punch his face and he flinches back. He nods. We're done.

I look around the boys. Every face, one by one. They nod. Some look happier than others, Frank and Spaghetti are grinning widest, but they all nod. And I finally wipe the blood away from my eyebrow, where Morris has spilt it open. One more thing needs doing, but I'll get to that.

I hold out my hand for the Jack and the bottle appears. I swill my mouth out and spit to the side. One of my teeth has cut the inside of my mouth, that's all.

Curly's off to one side, practically hopping up and down with excitement. Christ, how am I ever gonna make him watchful?

"Okay," I tell them. "This is my gang now, savvy? We ain't the Yard boys no more. This is the Shepard gang. You don't like it, you walk now." I wait a moment. No one moves, not even Paulson, not Morris, who is sitting up and hugging his ribs.

I think about Dom, briefly, but fifteen to life is fifteen to life. This is my turf now.

When the boys are all drinking again, blazing up if that's what they're into, yakking and boasting and settling into corners of the yard, I go over to the gate. The adrenaline is pumping still and I feel high on it, but I'm not showing it, I'm staying cool.

He never moved the whole time. I didn't include him when I faced them all after the fight. He stayed right there, leaning on the fence, smoking.

"Carter was hollering for Morris," he tells me. I file the information away.

"So," I say. "You want second? You're it."

Winston looks thoughtful. He smiles slightly, blowing smoke sideways.

"Nah," he says. "I don't do second."

* * *

** And, there we have my take on why, if they're so similar, Dallas isn't in the Shepard gang. Approve? **


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Sexist? In 1960's Tulsa? Well, Tim's education continues, with the facts of life according to Dom. Be advised. ;)**

* * *

I do okay for chicks.

Dom gets things started, gets some girl to play nice, even though I'm younger than her. I'm surprised how different it feels, when she puts her hand on me. Way better than jacking off. I think she's some kind of present to me. I don't remember thanking him.

She thinks we're brothers, when we pick them up. Says that she didn't know Dom had a kid brother. He just grins at me, in the rear view and lets her think it.

After that, I start to pay more attention to the bull sessions the older guys get into. If something they dismiss as 'just a hand job' was actually pretty fine, I wonder what the rest of it must feel like.

The difficulty is, I'm caught between the girls my age, who don't really put out, as far as I can tell, and the girls who hang out with the older guys, but who aren't likely to look favorably at my skinny thirteen year old ass. I can't tag onto Dom's dates all the time, in hopes he finds it amusing to give me another present.

Sometimes when the older guys are passing round skin mags and talking up their latest conquests, I think I might go crazy.

The lumberyard ain't much more than a scrub lot, with a shack for an 'office'. It needs warmer weather to make it an acceptable party hang out. When that finally happens, I'm like a dog straining on the leash.

Dom says to be cool, like he does for most things. He's an impossible act to follow, but I try. More than any of the other guys, who take his 'luck' for granted, who hear what he advises but don't _listen_ – and he's the one who taught me the difference - I watch and I learn.

I learn it isn't about any of the cheesy pick up lines the other guys swear by. I learn it isn't about Aqua Velva and cheap promises and getting them out of their skulls on booze. It's about choosing the right girl in the first place. Being watchful.

The right girl is already interested. The right girl don't need to be wasted because she's already in the mood.

The right girl might actually be someone else's girl, but if you play it clever, that don't have to matter.

Watching Dom put the moves on chicks, it seems to me that being the leader of an outfit like ours makes every girl the right girl. They never say no to him.

One of those parties, one hot night, I'm pretty sure I've got the watching and waiting down pat. There's a girl who's never been there before, who's come with a friend of a friend. I let her see me looking at her, but I don't go near her.

She walks right up to me, smiles, asks me, "You go to St. Anthony's?"

I shake my head. She tilts hers to one side.

"I'm sure I've seen you around."

"I'm around," I agree, real casual, trying to sound like Dom. Although I'm sure his heart don't beat like this when he gets a whiff of scent and hairspray.

After a beer she lets me kiss her. After two, she agrees to go up to the office.

She's not as good at the hand stuff as the girl Dom set on me, but I discover that don't matter so much. Because this time ain't as one sided as that was, this time I've got my hands on her. All over her. And that makes up for the fact that she tugs me a bit too rough.

We get kicked out, because Dom wants the office now. He winks at me as I go past.

The next day, he talks to me about rubbers, in detail this time. He says that I oughta be prepared. He says to practice, in the bathroom, on my own, because even the first time, you don't want the chick to think that you don't know what you're doing. In fact, he says, do _not_ tell the chick it's your first time, because then they get all sappy and possessive and you don't want that. You want to be moving on to the next one.

He says that it's better without a rubber, but you gotta know what you're doing and don't trust yourself the first few goes, because it's tricky to pull out in time, just at first. But you gotta make sure to do something, 'cause no one wants the hassle of a bawling chick and child support dragging you down. Or worse, someone's daddy a-huntin' you with a shotgun. Some chicks are after that, apparently, some chicks will try and trap you deliberate.

When he says that, I remember words I used to overhear, when Dad was pissed at Ma for some reason. _'Suckered into it. Trapped like a fucking rat.' _

I figure I will learn to use a rubber and my dad was a sucker if he didn't.

I like the first one. She's real pretty. I think that even before I get her clothes off. I know she's been with one of the other guys, he said so after the last party. But I don't care. I think she's pretty and her skin is real soft. She laughs when it happens, but it's okay because she ain't laughing _at _me, she's laughing because it feels good, because I did it okay. I like that.

She doesn't ever come back to the parties again. It's okay. There are others.

Later, after Dom goes inside, one of the older guys tells me that Dom was a hypocrite. He fell hard for the married broad, hard enough to take risks he shouldn't have.

"Why'd he warn off them little chicks who were into you, Tim, to make sure you didn't get distracted, an' then let himself get hooked like that?"

I tell him to shut the fuck up about Dom, if he knows what's good for him.

Just once I make the mistake of chasing a broad because I think I like her. She's hanging around this big guy, Richardson. He don't go to our high school though, so it's easy to get in under his radar. Too easy. I find out why she don't mind two-timing him, when she does it to me. I find out that she's banging Adam Murphy too.

She winds up pregnant, but that ain't down to me, I'm still following Dom's advice. I ain't no sucker. Murphy's a rising star over at the River Kings and I coulda done without him in my face about it. Richardson wants both our asses, but he ain't in a gang at all and he's in the reformatory before he gets the chance to mess me up.

I decide no broad is worth that much hassle. I don't need a steady girl. I stick to one time only deals.

One night when I'm sixteen, I'm down at the yard – _my yard_ - when Collins says that he saw me with a chick early in the morning and ain't I gonna spill the details?

I tell him he's crocked or crazy, I didn't get any last night.

"Mirage, was it?" he insists. "All that hair? All those tits?"

When he's gone, Winston snickers. He brought booze, so I'm letting him hang, but only as long as it lasts. I kicked out the kids, Curly included. Winston reminds me that Collins is fairly new in town, new to the outfit.

"Talking about your sister, ain't he. She's stacked, man. Even you gotta see that." He grins.

I start to say something, but then I stop. She ain't even thirteen yet, my sister. But hell, he's right. She got tits overnight.

I'm torn between ripping out Winston's tongue and ripping out Collins's eyeballs.

"Well, someone better put him straight, damn quick." I threaten. He shrugs. Not his problem. Not his sister. Well, Collins and every other fucker out there had better wise up to the fact that I'm making it _my_ problem. No one's layin' a finger on Angel, if I've got anything to do with it.

Winston stretches. He's bored. I'm bored.

We head over to The Dingo, scope out a few chicks and Winston sees these two girls right away. I can practically hear the zipper on his fly straining. Not that I ain't interested, but I'm playing it way cooler. It ain't hard to be cooler than Winston in heat. He ain't what I'd call subtle.

I tell him to let them come over to us. Then they got no excuse for backing down later.

Of course, it's Dom's voice in my head.

Winston's all over the stacked one, the bottle blonde. Good luck to him, she looks like trouble to me. Got an intelligent spark in her eye and who needs that in a skirt?

Her friend though, she's just dumb enough to be useful. We get round the back of the building, where it's dark and she can be useful on her knees.

Tries to give me her number after. Yeah. 'Cause I'll be calling.

Winston though, oh, he's a dead man walking. He asks for Miss Brainy's number and she just says she'll see him around. She catches my eye as she says it. She sees that I see that she's playing him and, damn, if she don't give a rat's.

He knows she's smart, tells me so.

"So what?" I say. "You wanna bang her, not join the friggin' debate team with her."

A few months later, I make a mistake. I let Winston know that I think he's whipped. Miss Brainy has a name now and I tell Winston that he ain't no more than Sylvia's puppy dog.

The fucking doctor in the Emergency Room is a quack; he hurts my nose more in fixing it, than Winston did in breaking it. I only went to the frigging hospital because I couldn't breathe right.

As it is I can't smell nothing but blood for three days.

* * *

**Double standards, much? Ah, Tim, they're **_**all **_**someone's sister...**

**Cookies to anyone who reads my Evie stories and spotted Buzz, and Tim's side of the story ;)**

**And...I have dabbled with the girls' POVs, from their encounters with Tim. Side fics, anyone?**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: If you ever doubted the power of the review/PM, check out starryeyedwr1ter's kind review of the last chapter. Absolutely true; back last year, when I gave Tim a walk-on in my Evie fic, starry encouraged me to 'write some more Tim.' This fic would not exist without that nudge. :) Communication, gotta love it!**

* * *

Start of the year, when he's a freshman, I see him around school, off and on. He's hard to miss, with his cocky walk and his strangled accent, North Side by way of the Bronx, vowels slip sliding from one city to the other in the same sentence.

We bump into each other, but rarely go up against each other for real. I got no beef with the pansies he runs with and he don't mess around in my turf, for the most part.

And then he does.

I get a couple of the boys to wait with me in the alley, outside the liquor store he's ripping off. The usual kind of pleasantries are exchanged:

"Winston, you're one stupid fucker, you think I'm lettin' you run free in my neighborhood."

"You ain't but a small time hood, Shepard, in a fucking small town at that. You'd piss your pants you ever went up against a real New York gang. Why in hell you think I'mma listen to anything you say?"

I tell the boys to leave it to me, they can go back to the car. Tell them that I don't need no help against one skinny little rodeo clown. He don't like that I call him that, which is what I was banking on.

He don't fight clean, he swings wide and wild, and in anyone else that'd be a flaw, but he makes up for his bad aim with fierce energy. We go a couple of rounds; eventually he clocks me a good one, but I sweep his feet out from under him.

"Thought you'd've had better balance, you bein' such a good horse rider an' all," I crow.

"Screw you," is his answer, lighting a weed without even getting up. No word of a lie, he flicks out a lighter, takes a stick out the pack in his sleeve and takes a drag, still flat on his back.

I ask him what the fuck he thinks he's doing.

"I'm takin' a break. Union rules," he says. "I already had two fights today. Can't put too many minutes on the clock."

I kick his foot. He waves the weed, like he already explained.

Since the first day I met him, Dallas Winston ain't been afraid of me. Ain't been impressed by me, neither. Pretty much the way I feel about him.

"You are so far outta your tree, you can't see the woods no more," I tell him, reaching down for one of the bottles of liquor he just boosted. He looks like he's going to object, then he waves it away.

"This store?" I point over my shoulder. "_Mine_. Fuck off down by the river, you wanna play at heists. See how you get on with the Kings. Gimme half of what you got out the register."

He shrugs as he climbs to his feet, hands over the dough. He don't care. It's just kicks. And truthfully, I don't much care neither. It ain't like he's got a real gang to move in on my turf.

But he's useful, with his fists, with his blade, and one day he'll see it makes more sense to be my second, than to keep hanging out with the bunch of misfits he usually pals around with. I know what Dom used to say, but I think there's a case to be made for keeping the smart ones close too; keeping 'em where you can watch them.

So, I would still make him second. Frank's tough enough, but he ain't as smart as Winston and sometimes it might be nice to talk a plan through, not just have everyone accept whatever I say.

I know, I got a brother in the gang. But Curly? Curly's liable to go off like a frigging Fourth of July rocket. There's nothing watchful about Curly, no matter how I try and tell him. He's just a kid yet, I guess. Maybe he'll wise up as he grows up. Maybe the reformatory'll calm him down some.

Otherwise, the gang works real well.

Paulson never came back after his stretch inside. Not to the gang, not to Tulsa. And the draft board dealt with Morris for me. I can't say I was sorry to see him go. Carter hung around for a while, I kept my eye on him, seeing as how he would've supported Morris against me. Eventually, he went up to Big Mac too, after he was stupid enough to get hauled in with his pockets full of speed.

That was all the older ones, the ones who were there when Dom had the gang. The guys who are left are all mine. Spaghetti and Frank, Donny from the grade below, we all go back to middle school. We got history. Spaghetti's got kid brothers, about a hundred of 'em, all lanky like him, we'll be recruiting them for years. A couple of others. I keep my eyes open still, for who would be useful.

And then there's Sammy. Oldest Freshman in the world. Makes Mathews look like some kind of AP genius. Sammy was on his third repeat when I got to high school and still late to every class 'cause he couldn't remember where they were and he can't read the numbers on the doors.

I think I got him as close to passing in class that year as he'd ever been, but I couldn't do nothing about the exams and when he quit school because he couldn't pass up with me, the school had nothing to say about it. The fuckers. I bet if he had a daddy and that daddy was a lawyer or an exec over to the oil companies, they'd have got him tutors and extra help and whatever shit they throw at the stupid Soc jocks, who can't add two and two, but who seem to pass up okay every year. No daddy and greasy hair? Forget it.

Shit, Sammy couldn't even tell the time good, until I showed him.

He's huge. Like, built like a fucking tank, huge. Like a full on truck. Which is funny since his name is Ford. And that's mostly how I use him. Shifting stuff, lifting stuff, over to the yard. General looming purposes. It's like having a mountain at your back. Not that I need back up, but it looks impressive all the same.

The funny thing is, he don't even like to fight. I had to teach him the basics, after I saw a couple of damn Socs giving him the runaround in the hallway. He got raised by some aunt, told him to be careful not to hurt the littler kids when he was in kindergarten and that kind of stuck with him. I mean, he does break things without meaning to and all that. I can see what she was thinking.

He's waiting by the car as I come out the alley. Him and Spaghetti, that's who came with me. Frank has a date, some chick he finally wore down. I guess we'll hear how that went, soon enough.

"Back to the yard, Boss?" Sammy's still excited by the fact I let him drive. I tell him yeah, back to the yard. I never asked him to call me 'Boss', but it makes him happy, so what the hell?


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: This one is short and not at all sweet. Sorry in advance.**

* * *

I'm driving Ma's beat up old Bel Air to pick him up. I ain't taking the chance some eagle eyed prick in a uniform sees me in a stolen car. Not here. Not right outside the reformatory.

He has a fading black eye.

"I assume the other guy looks worse," I say without looking at him directly, as he drops himself into the seat and I take off. I toss a packet of weeds onto his lap.

"Thanks for comin' to get me, Tim." He sounds smaller than he is, if that makes any sense. Truthfully, he looks taller, four and a half months'll do that when you're thirteen, but his voice don't seem to match. It's deep enough, but it's quiet. He ain't never been quiet.

"Figured you'd get lost, if I left ya to find your own way home."

He don't rise to the bait.

He stares out the window.

I know how weird it feels to see into the distance, when you been stuck inside so long. But I get the feeling he ain't so much looking _out_, as looking _away_. Not looking at me.

"You hungry?" Bizarrely, I want to find him some cookies and peanut butter, like when we were kids.

"Yeah."

I swing the junker off the road, picking a truck stop at random. Or maybe not so random, maybe because it ain't near our turf. I watch him walk into the place, watch him check it out, pick a booth where he can sit with his back to the wall and see the door.

I let him order what the hell he wants. What he wants is sweet stuff; pie and ice cream and a chocolate shake. Maybe I wasn't so far off with the cookies idea. I order coffee and I watch him eat.

"You do what I said? The first night?"

He nods, over the milk shake.

My advice had been to take on the toughest guy in the room, right after lockdown. Set yourself up as top dog, before someone tries to tell you what your place is. I can still hear Dom's voice telling me to do exactly that, before I went in the Reformatory. It worked for me. But it ain't a given, might not have worked for Curly.

"And?" I can't help needling him. Something's off.

"Yeah, I did it. They were babies. Except for this one kid an' I still stomped him."

"Good going." I say it matter of factly, like I didn't really expect anything else. But inside I'm thinking - as I'm looking at his eye - _Who did that, Curly? If you were top dog in your dorm, who did that?_

"You were right about the visitin'," he tells me, around a mouthful of pie, his lips and tongue turning black with the mash of blueberry and ice cream. "They was worse after they seen their folks."

When he went in, I said we wouldn't come up. Four and a half months, that ain't no time at all. I told him it makes the time stretch longer, if you're waiting on visits. Better to focus on the end date, the getting out. I didn't tell him I thought it would make him cry, to see us. I guess he knows that now, from seeing the other kids. Knows that you don't wanna show any sign of weakness, not to the other boys. Not to anyone.

I told him enough to get him by. I know I did. I told him not to ever be on his own in the showers, I told him not to owe any favors. Not to the other boys. Not to anyone.

"You see Joey Peters's kid brother in there? He got sentenced 'bout a week after you."

Curly shakes his head. No biggie, it don't always help, to know someone inside. Loyalties shift.

"Who'd you have trouble with?" I can't stop myself asking, because he ain't telling.

He shrugs. "Nobody." He's stabbing the end of his milkshake with the straw.

"_Nobody_ give you that eye?" I push it. I can see he don't want to say, but I got to know.

He shrugs again. If it was a fight, he would tell me. I know he would.

"You okay?" The words sound weird to me. I don't think I ever asked him outright before.

"I tried to stop him." The quiet voice is back, the one that don't sound like Curly. He's talking to the empty plate in front of him, his whole face turned down. "I tried, Tim."

"Okay." I try to believe myself as I say the word.

"He kept me after class. He had the keys. I didn't wanna..."

"Okay," I hear myself repeat.

Curly presses the back of his fist against his mouth. I can't tell if he's stopping himself from bawling or hurling. I feel nauseous myself even thought I didn't eat anything.

I toss a couple of bills on the table. "We should get going."

I slide out the booth and head for the car.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Poor Curly got so much sympathy, I added this little episode, because we trust Tim to handle it. Don't we...?**

* * *

"Whaddya want me to do, Curly? You want me to turn back time, make you not get sent down? Or how about I make it so you don't get caught boosting that car, in the first place?"

He's staring at me. _I can't fix it, Curly. I can't fucking fix this._

It was late summer when he got out. Within two weeks of school starting he'd been suspended for fighting. I told him then to knock it off, that if he didn't cool it, he'd be sent right back to the Reformatory. He's a goddamn walking advertisement for 'out of control youth'.

He does lay off the fighting, at least at school, but then he gets suspended for being 'unruly' in class. I suspect he was more like 'wasted' in class because he's wasted when I try to talk to him about it. That's when he yells at me, tells me that it's none of my fucking business what he does, it's his life and I can't do anything about it anyway.

"_Whaddya want me to do, Curly?"_

I wish there was an answer.

He stopped looking at me. He ain't looked me in the eye since he got out. But now he's staring at me. I need to do something.

When I reach out and take the bottle from him, I know he thinks I'm gonna tip it out, smash it, or something. Instead, I take a swig. I ain't big on tequila at the best of times and Christ knows where he got this, it's like battery acid.

"What're you doin'?" He's the wrong side of loaded to make any sense out of my actions. Which is probably just as well. I'm falling back on something Dom did. That ain't necessarily bad, although I know Curly is not me and not all Dom's lessons have the same impact on Curly.

As I pull Curly to his feet and shove him in my car, I remember Dom demonstrating what it was like to get so shit faced that you didn't remember stuff. But that's not what I'm going to replicate tonight. Curly already learned that lesson for himself, the tequila proves that.

I don't drink any more on the drive to Buck's place, it's enough that Curly thinks I did. I tell him to stash it in his pocket. There's been some rodeo going on and I would usually avoid that kind of after party, but I figure it will be busy with people and that's what we need. I scope out the place right away, find us a table in back, see who's around.

Takes about five minutes for them to get to us. The brunette with all the black shit on her eyes, I think I remember, _Mandy_, maybe? Whatever her name is, I definitely remember her friend, who is apparently blonder than she was when I got with her at a party back in August. Chicks.

"I didn't know you had a brother." That gives me freaking déjà vu. I smile. They sit with us and make nice. I remember Darlene all right. She's a lot of fun.

Curly, thinking I'm on the make, don't know whether to sulk or storm off. I tell him to sit tight, while I fetch some drinks for all of us. Now he's plain confused. This is all new to him, I never took him around like this before. Why would I have? He's just a kid.

While I'm at the bar, I reach over and get a couple of keys. One day, Buck's gonna learn to keep 'em somewhere more sensible.

"I saw that." Darlene followed me to the bar.

I shrug. "Kind of smoky down here, don'tcha think?" She smiles slowly. I bend to whisper in her ear, tell her what I have in mind. She pouts a little, but it's all an act. It ain't like she's been pining for me since August. She went with Spaghetti since then, according to him. They go to the same church.

"What? Your friend don't like me?" I challenge her pretend objection.

She says that _Annie_ – I was close enough – likes me fine. But am I sure about the kid?

"It's his birthday," I tell her, although it's about as far from his birthday as you can get, it's nearly my birthday. But he turned thirteen in the fucking Reformatory and I owe him a present. Darlene shrugs. She goes to the Catholic school, so she don't know Curly and he don't know her. Yet.

Curly's all 'what's goin' on?' when I get back with the drinks. We down the shots and then Darlene takes him by the hand and pulls him towards the stairs. He's too surprised to argue.

You can still hear the music, up in the rooms, which is not usually a good thing, but which adds to the party feel tonight. Only this just now became a private party. I suggest to Curly that he offers round his booze while we play cards and we all sit down. I get the end with the pillow.

The chicks don't know poker, so we play a few hands of strip Blackjack, by which time they're giggling fit to bust and have lost any extras like sweaters and shoes and hair bands. Jewelry don't count, I tell 'em, else they'll be counting off bangles and earrings one by one.

Next round, Curly loses his shirt. Darlene is practically in his lap by this point. I still have my jacket on.

It hasn't occurred to any of them to ask to deal.

When I look up from kissing the brunette – _Annie_, I'm almost sure she was at some party or other - Darlene is kissing Curly. Or maybe he's kissing her. Either way, they're swapping spit. She gets to whispering in his ear, telling him she wants to go next door, where they can be on their own.

He looks at me.

I nod towards the dresser, where I put the other key. Now Curly looks at Darlene, who is grinning. He waits for her to do something, but she just stands there, until he grabs the key and they head out.

I know she don't get that part, but that don't matter. All that matters is that I told her to make sure he was in charge of the key.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: Hello. Things have slowed down a little. Maybe because I strayed from canon? Back on track here, as you will see. Please let me know what you think.**

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Around the time when I'm turning seventeen, the owner of the disused lumberyard croaks. Some nephew or grandson or something surfaces, decides to turn it into a working lot again, office and all. I go down by the tracks, where I know there are other places we could use.

I need a place. I need somewhere the boys can hang, somewhere we can store things. Somewhere that says I am a person to be reckoned with, not some punk on a street corner he don't even own.

I want the old warehouse as soon as I see it. I get Sammy to kick in the door.

It won't take more than a couple of days for the boys to clear out some of the crap – not all of it, we can use some camouflage. There's a back room where the boys can hang, space for a couple of couches. It has a window onto the back of the rail depot that's already been jimmied open.

But upstairs, that's what I want. A metal staircase runs up one wall and there's a walkway looking down. An office and one more room besides. That'll be mine.

Sammy's trying to see if there's any water in the pipes – there's no sink left on the wall so he's going to get his feet wet if there is, but I don't point that out – when I go upstairs to check out my office.

That's when he rushes me. Some stinking hobo who's been sleeping out here, up and clocks me one.

Reflexively, I punch him right back, a good one to the gut that knocks him back against the wall. He ain't interested in prolonging it, he's down the stairs and away before Sammy even turns around.

And then Sammy's looking up the stairs at me and his big, stupid face is big, stupid and shocked.

And red. Everything looks red.

When I open my mouth to speak to Sammy I can taste it. And it's dripping down my chin.

I'd like to say I've never seen Sammy move so quick, but maybe he doesn't, maybe I'm thinking in slow motion. He does sacrifice his t shirt, wadding it up and holding it to my cheek. Then he gets sick, puking over the side of the staircase as we go down. I tell him I want that cleaned up before we move the gang in.

He drives without looking at me. I figure he doesn't want to puke in the car.

Twenty three stitches and I come out to find Curly waiting for me.

"What the hell are you doin' here?" I ask him. He can't drive for shit. I can't drive now, even if he stole a car to come down here. I can hardly walk straight on the stuff they shoveled into me, before they held me down and went to work.

"Dallas is outside," Curly announces, and for a second I think he's talking about the city. I'm tripping on these meds, and good.

Winston must have been babysitting. Makes sense that Curly got someone to drive, but for some reason Winston brought the littlest Curtis and some dark haired kid too. It's like some kind of freaking kids' convention in the back seat. At least little Curtis knows how to shut up. Although I wouldn't call him watchful, it's more like he's gonna piss his pants every time I look back there.

Curly says that Sammy's telling everyone I took a broken bottle to the face. Sammy's telling everyone I took on some squatter to clear him out the warehouse, to make it mine. I never say a word about the matter.

I sleep for fourteen hours and then I don't sleep for two days because the meds wear off and my face hurts to all fuck and back again. I discover that it's possible to use our bathroom without looking in the mirror.

I don't need a mirror because my old lady bursts into tears every time she looks at me.

Ron grunts and tells her I most likely had it coming. Pretty sure she then makes it so he don't got _nothing_ coming, because he goes on a three day drunk, right before pay day. Again.

And to my surprise Curly steps up. He lifts a load of stuff that's actually worth some dough, gets it fenced and with said dough, he buys food. The thing that most impresses me is, he don't hand the money over to Ma, he and Angel get the stuff. Maybe he's been listening after all.

As soon as I can move my face without wincing – by which I mean talk – I get back to the boys. It's dangerous to leave them unsupervised. I tell them they'd better fucking appreciate the warehouse.

They do.


End file.
